or answered him as one must answer sick folk
when they have fancies. She went away again the next day. My lady
tried to reason with her--she thought she was frightened; but it was no
use, she wouldn't listen.

"Then, after a few more days, my lady wrote. I saw the letter. It was
pitiful, just a cry from her breaking heart imploring her to come back,
saying that without her Mr. Francis would never get well. She wrote
back saying that she would come when he was right in his mind. She
just seemed determined not to understand that his mind never could get
clear while he was fretting for her night and day. That is
two-and-twenty years ago last June, and he has waited for her coming
ever since."

"But I cannot understand it," said Philippa. "I cannot understand any
woman not coming to the man she loved, however crazed he was. He
wanted her!"

"Ah, that was just it!" answered Mrs. Goodman sadly. "I knew it all
along, but my lady would not believe it until she was forced to do so.
She never loved him; and it was proved at last, for about six months
later she wrote to my lady and said she considered herself free--that
of course it was dreadfully sad, but that she could not spend her life
engaged to a hopeless invalid. Just a month after that she was
married."

"Married!" echoed Philippa.

"She ran away with some man her family didn't approve of. She never
had a heart, hadn't Miss Philippa."

"Then why did she become engaged to Francis Heathcote--if she did not
care about him?"

"Well, you see, he was rich and very handsome, and there were plenty of
young ladies who would have been glad to marry him. He was madly in
love with her!"

"Where was my father in those days? Do you know?"

"He was abroad somewhere. My lady wrote to him, beseeching him to try
and get Miss Philippa to come back. That was soon after the accident.
He came to England, but he couldn't do any good. I did hear he
quarrelled with his sister over it, and wouldn't see her or speak to
her again. He was so fond of Mr. Francis.

"It is an old story now." The old woman sighed deeply. "I little
thought to speak of it again. My lady never named her, and I hated her
too much to wish to speak of her. She condemned my boy to years of
prison--aye, and worse than prison. Of course I hated her. Even when
I heard that she had died a few years after her marriage the hatred
didn't die. I couldn't help it. You can't help your feelings. But